[starbase ogg]

Useful

by Ata aka DrD

These pages are maintained by Frank Niessink.
Last updated on 28 feb 1996.
Make yourself useful to your team Thats all there is to it. In pickup, you can basically be selfish and do what you want. In a team game you are playing to achieve a goal. Not for rank, or maxkills or some such shit. Your Captain can not possibly contact each person in time and tell them what they should do in the next few minutes. Not being useful actually translates to harming your team, because it means they are playing short-handed. At any given time see what needs to be done, assess your position, and do the most useful thing you can from your current situation. This, believe it or not, means watching your galactic quite often, and seeing who has kills, where they are, and what they are doing (or look like they may be doing shortly). It means reading messages and trying to respond to whatever you can. Trust your Captain! If he says take planet X he has some plan in mind, and it would be idiotic to explain it there and then.

I would say just about every netrek player has a degree or is in the process of getting one. So USE your BRAIN, and see what useful thing you can do and do it. Kills mean fuckall if they do not translate to something useful. 4 armies bombed = 1 planet probably saved. One enemy > 2.0 kills killed = planet saved. The reason I think highly of some players is because they are always doing something useful. Scummers are ONLY as good as the support they get ! "Gee, look XYZ took 20 planets so he is MVP". BULLSHIT ! He didn't do it alone PAL ! Killing 20 enemy with 0.0 kills while your carriers are dooshed is useless. If you can see there are enough escorts and you have some kills, its better to pick and drop armies - to reinforce or take, or neut etc.. - to draw the enemy off than to go and escort as one of 6 escorts. Here again you have to use your brain and asses the situation. The situation is begging for your attention on the galactic AND on the message board !

Useful GET TO FRONT-LINE and help your team mates. This does not mean dogfighting with enemy who has no kills. Unless the enemy are kill flat, always go for anyone with a kill. It means doing something useful, like ogging, bombing, helping carriers, carrying, intercepting base oggs or carrier oggs, saving planets by dooshing carriers etc...

Calling any enemy carriers eg f++. Do not just hope someone will do it. Watch your galactic, and see if anyone with kills is carrying or is about to carry. This is something useful you can do AT ANY TIME.

Escorting when you are not carrying. Escorting means get *-->AHEAD<--* of the carrier and the planet - when you finally get there - and det enemy torps, and try and kill any cloacked enemy as priority. Your ship as an escort is expendible. Do not be a pussy, afraid to die if you suck some enemy torps. Its in a good cause. Escorting means, do not fly over the planet to be taken, because you may blow up on the carrier.

Killing/ogging any enemy with 1 or more kills. The more kills, the higher priority. This does not mean rush in against 5 enemy alone. It means pick your time, and USE YOUR BRAIN. It means call for help from team mates and ogg him together if you need it.

Bombing any enemy planets when you can, and calling popped planets eg Veg++.

Picking and dropping armies onto weak planets (ie ones belonging to us which may be at 1 or 2 - its called reinforcing) or enemy planets. Usually, you should do this by picking from front-line, unless you are going to take a planet and want an escort.

ASW, but not at the expense of just waiting around doing nothing useful !

Useless Dogfighting with enemy who has 0.0 kills while they have carriers and maybe so do we. This means, almost by definition, to watch your galactic more often.

Orbiting a planet supposedly space controlling. Thats not space controlling !! Space controlling is to WATCH a planet and be able to get there FAST in case of danger. Usually, as soon as you take a planet it will be in danger of retake, hence you have to HANG BACK a bit and watch for any danger, and then CRASH the damn defenders or planet taker. It does not mean sit there until you are killed. It does not mean dogfight with people with 0.0 kills while a carrier is loading up to take it. It means call carriers, bomb if you can etc... It means do something else useful in the meantime. One of the most useful is TO USE YOUR BRAIN and THINK of something useful to do !

As for exactly the best way to sc bomb, base ogg, ogg a carrier, doosh a person near the target planet etc., etc. it is best shown by example, which we aim to do at practice games. As far as strategy is concerned, I think that has to be tailored to the abilities and weaknesses of your particular team. As for pre-planned roles (eg take wall-side) these are guidelines on what should be your area of activity WHILE you are being GENERALLY useful.

Ata <(|)>.

Comment Regarding announcing army pops: as a general rule don't announce any pops. Since we all watch the galactic we see this little men appear/disappear. It only fills the team-board and hides really important things. I have counted the number of messages to the team-board in the last ET-NATO game. NATO had about twice as much messages. Draw your conclusions :-).

little helper